Jim Ingraham: Coaching the Browns isn't easy, but someone out there can do it

By Jim Ingraham

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Here's one of Pat Shurmur's biggest problems right now: The guy who hired him no longer works for the Browns.

Worse yet, the guy who hired the guy who hired him no longer works for the Browns.

Mike Holmgren has left the building. Randy Lerner has left the building.

Jimmy Haslam III and Joe Banner have entered the building.

And sometime next week, surely, Pat Shurmur will leave the building.

For good.

As the Browns lurch toward the end of another failed season, the end of another failed coach's tenure and the beginning of another coaching search, now is a good time to ask that eternal Browns question -- yet again -- why is this so hard?

All the Browns are looking for is a football coach. It's not like they are searching for somebody to cure the common cold, a singer greater than Elvis, a president greater than Lincoln, or a cinnamon roll better than Cinnabon.

All they are looking for is a guy who can coach a little football.

Why do the Browns find it so hard to find Mr. Right? Is it because the guy doing the looking has always been Mr. Wrong?

Wouldn't you think that in the last 14 years, since their alleged return to the NFL, they would have, if nothing else, accidently stumbled upon a coach who could make a difference?

Yes, you would. But: nope!

All they've stumbled upon are other stumblers -- guys who have stumbled over the task of turning the NFL's most consistent band of stumblers into ballroom dancers.

No need to go through the laundry list of failed Browns coaches over the last 14 years. You know their names. You've watched them fail. You've seen them leave town. You've waited for the next guy to arrive, and you've lived through the repeat of that entire cycle.

Next week it will start again.

Maybe this time they will get it right. It will be the first coaching hire of the Haslam Era. The bar, shall we say, has not been set real high.

Let's also say that Mr. Right is out there, somewhere. Other teams seem to be able to find him. The last time the Browns had Mr. Right they thought he was Mr. Wrong. Their last legitimate NFL coach was Bill Belichick. But in 1995 the Browns left for Baltimore, and a Super Bowl trophy, and Belichick left for the Hall of Fame.

Seventeen years later, the Browns are still looking for somebody to coach the team who can make a difference. Finding a quality NFL coach isn't brain surgery, even if the Browns make it seem like it is.

This much we know: the really good coaches reveal themselves very quickly.

-- In Seattle, the Seahawks were 5-11 the year before Pete Carroll took over. Since he arrived, they've gone 7-9, 7-9 and, this year, 10-5.

-- In San Francisco, the 49ers were 6-10 the year before Jim Harbaugh took over. In his two years on the job, their records have been 13-3 and 10-4.

-- In Atlanta, the Falcons were 4-12 the year before the anonymous Mike Smith became coach. In their first year under Smith, the Falcons went 11-5, followed by records of 9-7, 13-3, 10-6 and 13-2.

-- In Baltimore, the Ravens were 5-11 the year before John Harbaugh took over, and since he's been coach the Ravens have gone 11-5, 9-7, 12-4, 12-4 and 10-5.

-- How about Green Bay? The Packers were 4-12 when Mike McCarthy was hired. Since then they records are 8-8, 13-3, 6-10, 11-5, 10-6, 15-1 and 11-4.

-- In Denver, the Broncos were 4-12, so they hired John Fox, and they went 8-8 his first year and 12-3 this year.

Obviously there were other factors in these examples that helped explain the teams' turnarounds. Making astute draft picks, good trades and smart free agent signings all enter into it.

But it starts with the head coach. He is the face of the organization. He symbolizes the team's toughness, enforces its discipline, creates its culture, determines its offensive and defensive systems, evaluates its personnel, puts it in situations to succeed and preserves, protects and defends the team's brand.

In short, he coaches.

He leads.

It's not an easy job. Especially in Cleveland. Particularly now. There is too much civic scar tissue built up between the calloused town and the troubled team, caused by all these years of losing.

This is not a job for a beginner. It's a job for somebody with the coaching chops, confidence, and charisma who understands what's gone on here the last 14 years and not only sees the urgency of the situation, but aggressively embraces it.